Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

Tag Archives: Tea Party

The information out of Charlottesville, Virginia is about as sickening as it can get. While they can gather for protest, a group of white supremacists, Neo-Nazi groups, Ku Klux Klan hoodsmen and “alt-right” practitioners met for a protest in the city regarding the removal of a statue of former Confederate general Robert E. Lee, bearing torches and chanting such things as “Fuck you, faggot,” and throwing the Nazi salute at anyone who it seemed to apply to. On Saturday, met by a counter-protest of…well, pretty much the entirety of the human race…the protests turned violent to the point of death.

In a gruesome video, an “alt-right” member, like an ISIS terrorist, allegedly drove his personal vehicle into a group of counter-protestors, killing one of them and injuring 19 others. The alleged perpetrator’s MOTHER knew he was going to the rally, saying she “didn’t get into his politics.” Two Virginia State Troopers were killed when a helicopter they were riding in that was responding to the protest was brought down. That’s right, three people killed by the scum of society.

For his part, Orange Foolius looked to be the ultimate fool in trying to maintain his courtship of these Neanderthal bastards when issuing his first statement on the subject. “We condemn the…hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides.” MANY SIDES? Last I checked, you orange hued shitgibbon, it was an ALT-RIGHT member driving his car into protesters – like many suggested during Black Lives Matter protests over the last couple of years – not any of the counter-protestors. If you are trying to court a racist, fascist base that makes up “your people,” YOU ARE NOT FIT TO BE PRESIDENT. Even his own party members were castigating him for his attempt to mollify the Nazis, the racists and the “alt-right” who WERE the instigators.

But we cannot put the entire cause on this imbecilic child’s tiny hands. He WAS the catalyst, but the pot was brewing previously; he just gave it a method of release.

When Barack Obama was elected in 2008, there were literally millions who were aghast that a BLACK MAN could become the President of the United States. The numbers show in any research you would like to do. No matter what you might call them – “militia” groups, “Patriot” organizations, “Tea Party” members (in fact, many hid behind the “Tea Party” façade rather than admit what they were – white nationalists) – their numbers increased after a black man had the audacity to be elected President. “Militia” groups – basically fat fucks playing soldier for a perceived Armageddon that will never occur – went from 42 in 2008, peaked at 334 in 2011 and was down to 276 by 2015.

The purpose of these groups was to facilitate the anger, the hatred, of people that were different from them. Whether they were blacks, immigrants, Muslims or Asians, the hate was equally spread. And facilitate it they did – fed by the vitriolic gruel from Fox News, Breitbart, and more closely related outlets such as the Daily Stormer and the website Stormfront (which will not be linked to here). And they had eight years – eight LONG years – for that hatred to metastasize; all it needed was something to release it.

Orange Foolius saw that hatred – hell, many believe he participates in it willingly (and if lawsuits are any indication, he seems to have something against minorities of ANY type) – and fed into it every moment of his scumbag campaign. He worked CLOSELY with a white nationalist/now Presidential advisor Steve Bannon, who used Breitbart to espouse his hatred of Jews and blacks. He put a damn white supremacist, Steve Miller (who was a college friend of the “alt-right’s” Richard Spencer), in as his SPEECHWRITER. And this doesn’t even touch his Attorney General, Jefferson Beauregard Sessions, who was once deemed “racist enough” that he was UNWORTHY OF A FEDERAL JUDGSHIP!

Orange Foolius knew these would be the ones who pushed him over the top, would be the “silent” part of his support that wouldn’t be counted by the “normal” people. Thus, he tapped into the anger, tossed gasoline on the fire with his fascist, racist rhetoric. Add in his further xenophobia, misogyny, and utter idiocy on any subject that might call for a nuanced thought, and he cemented their vote.

But now that they have their “Dear Leader,” they feel they can come out of the cesspool they lived in and try to “Make America Great Again” by taking it back to a period of hatred that was one of the worst in not just American history but in human history. Orange Foolius doesn’t know and probably doesn’t care what these scumbags do because “hey, he’s the President!”

For those of you that support the orange fool who embarrasses this nation every goddamn minute, you need to take a good, long look in the mirror. If you signed on for this, for YOUR PEOPLE, your fellow supporters, to “take back the country” in this manner, then you have a serious mental issue. If you didn’t sign on for this, then you still must stare into that abyss that is your soul and find what point is too much to take for your support to continue, for you to pledge blind obedience to “Dear Leader.” The problem is that you don’t have long; the situation isn’t going to get any better, it’s going to continue to get worse (oh, but YOU got the guns, right? That’s an embarrassing statement to even consider.).

No, the shitgibbon in the White House didn’t cause what occurred in Virginia on Saturday. But he certainly was the catalyst for its launch because of his giving voice to those who previously were viewed correctly, as the scum of society. Now those that say they “support” the jackass at the head of the Neo-Nazis, “alt-right” and white supremacists must figure out just how far their support should go.

With all the turmoil over the 2016 Presidential campaign – and the choice between a duplicitous but highly qualified Hillary Clinton and a raving nutbag of racism, misogyny and xenophobia in the Tangerine Nightmare (that’s right, I don’t even begin to name him – my choice), never in the history of the United States has there been a riper time for a third party candidate to make an impact. Because the two “major parties” have been unable to nominate someone who could, you know, actually LEAD the country, someone like the Libertarian Party or the Green Party could step in and fill the void. Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be the case.

Let’s take the Libertarian Party first. The only other party to actually be on all 50 ballots in the U. S., the Libertarians have reached a crossroads in their existence. Long viewed as the “hippie” party because of their views on legalization of marijuana and policies that put more into personal responsibility than governmental rigor, the Libertarians are actually the only party (other than the two major parties) to actually register a notable percentage of the vote in 2012; in that Presidential election, former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson garnered 1,275,951 votes across the U. S. – roughly 1% of the votes in the election (and the best ever showing by the Libertarians).

When it comes to the 2016 Presidential efforts, however, the Libertarians took a page from the GOP playbook instead of…well, being Libertarians. Johnson (who had previously run for President as a Republican in 2012 and, after losing that nomination, suddenly “saw the light” and became a Libertarian), believing that he would be easily nominated again for the party’s Presidential ambitions, instead had to fight off accusations that he wasn’t “libertarian” enough (heard that somewhere before?) and that someone who was a “true Libertarian” needed to be chosen. In the end, however, Johnson and his Vice President pick, former Massachusetts Governor Bill Weld, earned the nomination of the party.

Turning our attention to the Green Party, they have also nominated the same candidate that they chose in the 2012 election. Dr. Jill Stein, a longtime activist with the party, was selected in 2012 and garnered absolutely no attention from anyone whatsoever. How bad was it? In that 2012 election, Stein drew in 469,628 votes, less than the population of Brevard County on the East Coast of Florida.

Fast forward to 2016 and, instead of picking someone who might be a “fresh face” for the party, the Greens picked Stein again. The choice was made despite the factor that she has been viewed by many as anti-science and has tossed her hat in the ring with 9/11 conspiracy advocates (like theOrangutan Mutant). Party officials obviously were looking for someone and, lacking anyone with even the inkling of name recognition that Dr. Stein (who also offered her nomination to former Democratic Presidential hopeful Senator Bernie Sanders if he would just switch to the Green Party) had, decided to stick with her (these things have pretty much eliminated her from contention, much like Johnson’s Aleppo mistake and, just this last weekend, his contention that “nobody got hurt” during the bombings in New York and New Jersey and the knife attack in Minnesota, dismisses him as a serious contender).

There’s several problems with looking towards the “third party” option in this or any election, but we will only deal with a few of them here. First, voting for a “third party” option is the waste of a vote (and, as you will see, the statistics demonstrate this); second, that a solid third party has yet to form; and third, that the other parties are not following a path towards success if they are trying to infiltrate the two party system.

First, if you are considering a vote for a third party candidate this year, take a look at the numbers. Of the elected positions in national government – the President and Congress – how many of those seats are held by the Libertarian Party? The total would be zilch. What about governorships in the United States? That, too, would be zero. You have to go to the state legislatures to even find a Libertarian, and that total would be four out of 7383 seats available. In local elected offices (of which there are tens of thousands of elected positions), there are only 145 wielding power.

What about the Green Party? They don’t even register on the national or state scene, with no elected officials in any national or state government. The Green Party does register about the same numbers on the local scene as the Libertarians – an estimated 137 positions – but there’s problems for the party overall. When it comes to actually getting votes, they aren’t even on the ballot in all 50 states FOR PRESIDENT, let alone running in other races.

The second point – that no solid third party has formed in the past 30 years – takes into account those parties that “stood alone” from the two party system, of which none have been successful. The Tea Party was a subset of the Republican Party (in fact, if the Republicans didn’t want to be in the situation they are now, they should have cut the Tea Party loose from the start) and the Dixiecrats were a subset of the Democratic Party after World War II (and they were eventually cut off by the Democratic Party). Those parties that tried to stand alone – Ross Perot’s Reform Party had a nice run in the 1990s before petering out after the turn of the century and there are individuals who choose “Independent” as their party (despite the fact there isn’t a “dedicated” Independent Party) – have never been able to grasp the public’s attention for very long.

The third point – that the smaller parties are taking the wrong approach – is an easy one to correct. Instead of trying to elect one of your members to the Presidency, why not try to make inroads into the local and state realms of government. Remember those numbers presented earlier? The numbers that showed that, of all the state and federal elected positions, that only four seats would be occupied by someone that identified as Libertarian and zero by Greens? The numbers that showed that, of local governments, slightly less than 300 seats were held by someone not affiliated with either major party?

If the Libertarian or Green Party were able to actually make an impact on the local political arena – instead of 300, how about 30,000 elected officials? – then they would be able to spark the changes that they seek on the state and national scene. Even if either Johnson or Stein were elected, do you honestly think that the Congress – dominated by the two major parties – would choose to work with them? It is something that has to grow from the ground up, not from the top down.

It is thought that pulling the lever for one of the non-mainstream candidates will be a form of “protest,” of “voting on principle,” when it will in fact be a waste of your voice. By pulling the handle for either Johnson or Stein (or any of the other candidates who may emerge on your ballot for President), you are saying that, while you don’t like either of the major party choices, you also don’t want to be involved in the process of choosing from the two most likely choices someone who WILL be the next President of the United States (and yes, it can sometimes seem like you’re getting screwed, but at least you made a choice as to who would be screwing you).

Who do you want making the key decisions, not only for our nation but also for the usage of our military men and women, for the conduct of our foreign affairs, for the security of the nation, for the efficient operation of our government and for raising up everyone instead of a select few? By voting for a third party candidate, you abdicate your ability to make the choice – the compromise that our democracy is built on – and choose the future leader of the country.

With all hope, it won’t have an effect on the outcome of the race. In 2000, the Green Party’s Ralph Nader was able to garner 2.9 million votes, with some saying that it doomed Al Gore’s hopes for the Presidency (and remember that, in Florida, Gore is reported to have lost by 527 votes despite winning the popular vote nationally). In 1992, Perot ran as an Independent (he had yet to create the Reform Party) and earned a whopping 19% of the vote, arguably denying the first George Bush a second term in office (Bush lost to Bill Clinton by roughly 5.8 million votes; Perot earned 19.7 million).

The choice may be an ugly one, but it has to be made. A petulant display of “making a point” by choosing a minor party’s candidate isn’t a protest but an abdication of responsibility. Perhaps someday these parties will have worked to the point where they can challenge the current stalwarts of politics, but that time isn’t now. Thus, we have to choose from the two candidates who represent the major political parties and, after the votes are tallied, WILL provide the 45th President of the United States.

Ever since the stampede that began literally three years ago following Barack Obama’s re-election and inauguration to a second term as President of the United States – and if you don’t think the 2016 Presidential Race began there, you’re adorably naïve – it seems that, at least for one side of the two party system in the United States, the inmates have taken over the asylum (and just as a tangent, if any other country in the world said “we only have two parties to choose our leadership from,” the U. S. would be screaming voter repression from the highest peaks…in our own country? Not a peep.). The Republican Party – the party that once held such great thinkers as Presidents Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, other politicians such as Barry Goldwater and Nelson Rockefeller, journalists Peggy Noonan, David Brooks and the late William F. Buckley – has usually been able to bring some sane minds to its leadership. Around the turn of the century, however, there was a change in the thinking, what became the Neo-conservative mindset, that splintered a once great party. Instead of being a party of intelligence like the people above, it began to erode from the inside, with its hoi polloi beginning to follow the baying of hounds such as Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin and the en masse robotic diatribes that flow from Fox News, turning the GOP base into an ugly, misogynistic, xenophobic, scared-of-its-own-shadow (and any minority that may have the audacity to even begin to think its…equal…to them) mob.

The sane side let the mob rant and rave after Obama’s election in 2008 and his re-election in 2012, saving its energy for the 2016 election. They set about trying to say all the right things in their 2012 “autopsy” about what went wrong: they needed to reach out to women and all minorities – Asians, Hispanics, blacks and gay voters – and needed to have a comprehensive approach to immigration reform. They needed to have fewer debates – presumably so their candidates didn’t shoot themselves in the foot as often as they did in the run-up to the 2012 election – and needed to decide their nominee earlier, changing their primary structure. But the sane side said their principles were still good, they just weren’t “resonating” with the electorate.

Then the sane side let the maniacs in the asylum take over.

It started in 2010, actually. Elected that year, Florida Senator Marco Rubio had made it clear that there was only one aspiration that he desired in his political career and it wasn’t to sit in the U. S. Senate for the rest of his career, it was to be the President of the United States. In 2012, another player came along with that same philosophy, Texas Senator Ted Cruz, and both of these men were embraced by the “Tea Party” element (the “Tea Party” element is actually a bastardization of the group originally started by former Texas Representative Ron Paul, but that’s another story for another time). While they didn’t announce it, both of these men were running for the GOP nomination well before they even inked the paper letting the Republican Party know they were in the race for 2016.

The Republican National Committee, after their 2012 “autopsy” and all their plans and their sanity, saw the maniacs bring that all crashing down. They were OK with Rubio (not so much with Cruz) but, after the November 2014 midterm elections Dr. Ben Carson, a darling of the “Tea Party,” began to leak information that he “was interested” in running for the GOP nomination and actually entered the race in May 2015. Instead of getting a few “qualified” candidates, the floodgates opened; by the time the spigot closed, 17 people had announced their candidacy for the Republican nomination, an unruly amount that would present logistical difficulties on several fronts.

It was one of those 17 candidates that truly exposed the maniacal – or, perhaps at its unfortunate worst, the true heart – of the Republican Party. When he made his announcement in June that he would seek the GOP nomination, billionaire Donald Trump immediately stuck his foot in his mouth by insinuating that Mexicans were “rapists, drug dealers…and a few are good people, I’m sure.” He said he would deport all illegal immigrants – estimated to be approximately 12 million in the United States – and build “a wall” on the border between Mexico and the U. S. and “force Mexico to pay for it.”

In a normal world, under normal circumstances and with a normal party that hadn’t fanned the flames of xenophobia and racism after being thumped twice in a Presidential race, Trump’s comments would have brought a direct disavowal from the party’s leadership. Instead, the party’s leadership reached out and embraced Trump while at the same time trying to look aghast at what he was saying. The sane side of the party sat on the bench and tried to reason that their fellow Republicans would come to their senses and realize the rhetoric that the Orangutan Mutant was spewing wasn’t A) becoming of a member of their party, let alone the human race, and B) would eventually move towards a better choice.

As Trump’s comments became more outrageous, his support grew rather than fell. Disparage a decorated military veteran who was a POW in Vietnam? Sure! Ridicule a handicapped journalist? He’s on it! Want me to bash women? Let’s talk about their looks and menstrual cycle! It’s now gotten to the point that Trump has discussed killing journalists and that he could “shoot someone” in the middle of Fifth Avenue in New York City and not lose any voter support. We’ve even reached the point where white supremacist organizations are sending Trump information over Twitter…AND HE RETWEETS IT without anyone blinking!

It’s finally gotten to be a bit much for the sane side of the Republican Party, but it is far too late as you’ve already lost your party to the lunatics. The conservative magazine National Review dedicated an entire issue last week to the question of Trump’s leadership of the Republican Party, firmly stating their opposition to his candidacy and his position as the potential GOP nominee for President. 22 conservative voices stepped up and penned essays explaining their reasoning for not supporting Trump, with a predictable response.

Trump, after lauding the magazine the week prior to the issue’s release, ripped the Review as a “failing rag” saying that Buckley (the founder of the Review) “would be ashamed of them.” The RNC, not surprisingly, sided with Trump in removing the Review from a future debate as moderator, citing that a “moderator can’t have a predisposition.” Other voices have also sounded off and it may actually have an effect.

In New Hampshire, the mood is supposedly turning against Trump despite what current polls say in the state’s upcoming primary. According to the New York Times, a sizeable number of GOP voters are anti-Trump and feel that the polls are being swayed by those that won’t be voting in the primaries. They call themselves the “68 Percent” – “the significant majority of Republican voters here who are immune to Mr. Trump’s charms and entreaties, according to a battery of voter interviews on Thursday at campaign events for his rivals,” according to the Times.

The problem is that the sane side hasn’t stood up to this point yet, to put an end to the maniacal side’s reign of terror. They haven’t been able to thwart the drive from those that feel that Donald Dickhead is the one who should be the face of the United States, the one that we should send to discuss important worldwide topics as climate change, nuclear proliferation (let’s not get into the factor that he doesn’t even understand what the “nuclear triad” is), worldwide famine or pestilence, potable drinking water for lacking areas, reasonable solutions for refugee situations (either through war or natural disasters) and other critical matters. Then there’s the home issues, such as domestic spending, military spending, Medicare/Medicaid, improving employment options and living arrangements, drug and alcohol treatment and a litany of other areas. If Trump thinks he can come in and wave a magic wand, “hire the right people” or just “it’s gonna be huge” everything away, he’s going to be greatly surprised.

Then there’s the problem with the GOP itself. For a party that ran an “autopsy” on itself in 2012, they don’t seem to have learned anything. It seems that the party’s leadership is willing to make the same mistake with the Hispanic vote, thinking that a miraculous outpouring of disaffected white voters will somehow appear out of the woodwork to somehow counteract the damage that Trump has done. Then there’s the factor that the spokesperson for your party’s leading candidate (Trump, naturally) wants to call President Obama a “half-breed” and defends it because she is one, too…not exactly the way to embrace minorities.

Finally, let’s get to the GOP…it really doesn’t seem that they are “for” anything, rather it seems that they are advocates for “taking” things. The Republican Party wants to take away the woman’s right to choose, take away gender equality and gay rights, take away “welfare” and food stamps. They’ll defend “family values” as long as they agree with them (right, Governor Huckabee?), shrink the government (unless it infringes on the military), put Jesus back in the school system (but no other religions) and create jobs (despite not introducing a jobs bill in the past six years) by cutting taxes on everyone who already has more money than they absolutely will ever need.

Perhaps the sane side should have spoken sooner. But perhaps the sane side was lulled to sleep, thinking that they had taken care of the potential problems for 2016 and just needed to keep the wolves at bay with a little red meat. Now, those wolves – the maniacs that they let grow to a size too large to keep in the kennel – are recalcitrant to the sane side’s arguments and discussions. Along the way, they may have destroyed what was once known as the Republican Party…the remainder of 2016 will decide that question.

When it began a few months ago, it seemed a fun little charade. When billionaire…what the hell DOES he actually do anyway?…Donald Trump descended the escalator of his Trump Tower complex in New York that fateful day in June, no one could have envisioned what has happened. The moment he opened his mouth, the U. S. as a whole should have arisen as one and shut down this gasbag asshole before he even got into motion. The problem is now it may be too late.

From that meeting, Trump has been an unrestrained fountain of idiocy and there are enough mouth-breathers out there to lap up every drop of his gruel. In that supposedly celebratory introduction of his campaign to the U. S. voters, Trump immediately came out saying that he would push all illegal immigrants out and send them back to Mexico. Calling them “rapists and murderers” Trump the dipshit assumed that every one of the “illegals” was from Mexico as he bastardized an entire nation. What backlash did he get from those statements, from the Republican National Committee? Silence. What did he get as condemnation from any Republican leader or other candidate who had declared for the race? Crickets…

This wasn’t the end of Trump’s bullshit bouillabaisse. In the very first GOP debate, Trump decided to castigateFox News Channel reporter/anchor and moderator Megyn Kelly. Feeling a question was out of line, Trump the misogynist cretin went on a rampage later insinuating that Kelly was on her period with blood coming from “wherever,” hence the “grueling” questioning from her. He has continued to bastardize Kelly’s name and Fox News also. What have they done about it? Not a fucking thing.

There have been other truly mind-numbing incidences since this August tete a tete with Kelly (diminishing Senator John McCain’s military service, building a “wall” on the border with Mexico that they would pay for, etc.), but let’s fast forward to the last week or so as Trump has ratcheted the bullshit up even more. After the last GOP debate on November – and in response to falling behind Dr. Ben Carson in the polls in Iowa – Trump went on a 95-minute diatribe against Carson. In that screed against an opponent, Trump went to the point of stating that the voters of Iowa were “stupid” for wanting to support Carson and compared Carson’s statement regarding his teenage “pathological temper” to that of the mindset of a child molester.

The terrorist attacks in Paris – by European nationals radicalized by the Middle East terrorist organization ISIS, it has to be stated – was a truly stunning and saddening attack on a great European city. It also provided an opening for the GOP to use the incident to show how “weak” the Obama Administration has been in foreign policy (political demonization of a subject isn’t the exclusive domain of the Republican Party, but they’ve perfected its usage). Not to be outdone by the “weaklings” around him, Trump rocketed off the rails in his demonstration of his “foreign policy” knowledge.

To start with, Trump stated that he would “bomb the shit out of ISIS” as a method of taking care of a delicate foreign policy issue. This “bullshit in a china shop” mentality doesn’t stop there as Trump went on to declare that a “database” or registry for Muslims in the United States wasn’t a bad idea. He finished off this latest xenophobic rant by saying that he saw “Muslims” standing on the shores in New Jersey cheering as the World Trade Center came down on 9/11, an occurrence that there is ABSOLUTELY NO EVIDENCE OF EVER HAPPENING!

What should have been the final straw – no, the final straw should have come the day after he announced his candidacy when the castrated RNC should have said “thanks but no thanks, Donald” – occurred on Sunday evening. Delivering his usual blindly racist, misogynist and xenophobic message to a bunch of droolers in Alabama, Trump was faced with one man apparently from the organization Black Lives Matter who questioned his stance on the subject of the treatment of blacks by law enforcement. Before any of the Secret Service agents on the scene could do anything, Trump bellowed, “Get him the hell out of here!” His brain-dead minions, ordered to act by their demigod, proceeded to beat, punch and kick the man in question and Trump later commented that “maybe he should have been roughed up” as if he were John Gottiordering a hit on a member of the Bonanno Family.

Oh, and guess what? Trump may still run as an independent if he doesn’t feel he’s been “treated right.” He also hasn’t even bothered to issue any of his political platforms on any issue facing the country, instead continuing to say about those ideas “it’ll be great,” “it’ll be huge” or “you won’t believe how good it will be.”

The complete and utter madness that comprises the Trump campaign would be funny if it wasn’t so A) dangerously problematic, and B) fucking stupid. None of what Trump wants to do – from building a wall on our Southern border to the nearly Nazi-esque thought of rounding up 11 million illegal immigrants with an “immigration police” (already got that, asshole…it’s called ICE) or creating database watch lists on segments of society, “bombing the shit” out of things, ramping up taxes on Chinese imports, reducing taxation revenues without cutting spending (I could go on) – would be politically feasible or particularly helpful to the country as a whole. For all the empty feeling rhetoric of his campaign slogan – “Make America Great Again” – Trump would instead drive us into the depths of a catastrophic financial and political crisis.

The blame for the ascension of Donald Trump falls squarely in the lap of the RNC and the lower reaches of the conservative movement. The RNC, in an attempt to turn around the results of national elections and return to the White House, decided after 2012 to “streamline” their nomination process. This streamlining was originally supposed to reduce the exposure of the candidates to the general public (instead of the more than 24 GOP debates in 2011-12, only 11 in 2015-16) and, in twisting around the counting of the early primary states, was supposed to produce a candidate earlier. The logic for this was to move their candidate forward sooner to start the campaign against the Democratic nominee earlier than the GOP Convention in the summer of 2016.

This “planning” by the RNC has completely backfired on them. First of all, it opened up a free-for-all as to the nominee, with 16 eventual candidates announcing their intentions to run for President. That size of field would only serve to create and demonstrate the massive division inside the party, with center-right Republicans leaning towards Jeb Bush or Marco Rubio, with Tea Party sympathizers going towards Ted Cruz or Rand Paul and with the religious right going towards Carson or Mike Huckabee (where the others fall in is anyone’s guess).

Secondly, the skewing of the early results in a rush to nominate a candidate could come back to haunt them. Because of the size of the field, it is possible that someone (like Trump) could usurp the early primaries and, if not earn the nomination outright, hold a sizeable chunk of delegates come convention time. Thus, everything that the RNC had looked to avoid would be caused in a brokered convention.

The RNC has also been completely castrated as to controlling the candidates. There is a point of disagreement with the opposition, but the RNC has not castigated Trump (nor anyone else, for that matter) when they make inappropriate statements regarding other candidates or blatantly racist stances that WILL have an effect come next November. The purpose of having a leadership body is to do exactly that…lead. The RNC has failed to do that.

The rank-and-file GOP also deserves a great deal of blame for allowing Trump to rise. Instead of the party drawing together to denounce the incomprehensible statements Trump was making and forcing him either to run a proper campaign or get the hell out, everyone chose to stay quiet, lest they offend the deeply conservative base of their party. This part, which has been shown to be less intelligent (no college degree) and not as rich (earning under $50,000 per year), also outnumbers the elite inside the Republican Party. As such, they have to be paid “lip service” towards their antiquated and borderline racist thoughts by allowing Trump to be their spokesperson.

These are the same people who have stated it would be good to hunt potential illegal immigrants on the border of Texas; who have stated without evidence that immigrants are taking jobs from real “‘Muricans” while at the same time stating these immigrants are “lazy” and would suck from the teat of government welfare (and the list goes on). Needless to say, these aren’t the brainiacs of the United States.

To the GOP, I would like to say there is still hope yet. You can still distance yourself from Donald Trump or, at best, force him into having to defend his statements and provide some policy points of what he would do as President. Those members of the Republican Party who have a functioning brain could then let their other brethren know that Trump isn’t the one to lead the party into next week, let alone lead the country for the next four years and present a logical alternative. If you continue down this track, GOP, you will be destroyed in the 2016 elections and it could inflict permanent damage.

As a personal note, I’d love to see a GOOD Republican nominee come to the fore. I think Rubio is on the right track (have a hard time seeing him getting the nomination after the complaints over Barack Obama, whose career is mirrored by Rubio) and there are younger members of the GOP that might have some ideas worth hearing. I hear much discussion about the “diversity” of the GOP, but I don’t see it when they step on the stage (one woman, a black man and two Hispanics don’t change the faces in the crowd behind you). I also don’t hear the diversity in thought when I hear the voices speak.

Am I angry about Donald Trump and his egotistical, idiotic exploits on the campaign trail? Yes, I am. A well-known former Libertarian vice-presidential nominee has said that a Trump presidency “would be fun.” I don’t look for my President to be a fucking comedian or an entertainer; I look for that person to actually be someone I can respect in the office, regardless of party (as much as I disagreed with the second George Bush, I still respected how difficult his job was and his efforts). If Donald Trump is the person who is sitting in the White House come 2017, woe to the nation of idiots that elects him.

Watching the Republican Party debate on Thursday night, I was disillusioned by how far the Grand Old Party had fallen. Their Top Ten candidates (of a 17 player field, it must be reminded) consisted of the leader, a person who had never held political office, has filed for bankruptcy four times, traded in older wives for trophy wives twice and has little to offer the world other than a banal reality television program and the right to use his name on your properties; the third wheel of a familial dynasty that looks like he’d rather be somewhere else than running for President; a “bold visionary” who did nothing but hurt constituents that, while working for the state, suddenly found their rights to collectively negotiate their benefits was being pulled by his leadership; and, without droning on too long, a list of other religious sycophants, Tea Party dweebs and a Libertarian that lost his way. And this isn’t even looking at the JV team that played to a silent house before the Main Event on Thursday night.

There was a time when the Republican Party actually got things right. Richard Nixon was quite the embarrassment for the GOP in the 1970s in becoming the first sitting President to resign the position, but he did some great things before he was forced (rightfully, it must be added) from office. The opening of relations with China, the détente developed with the Soviet Union and the addition of several key agencies (most notably the Environmental Protection Agency) were all done under his watch. He was one of many in that era of Republicans who actually got the job done, except Nixon went a little too far.

The wheels proceeded to come off the Republican bus soon after that. While many look to Ronald Reagan as the “perfect Republican,” many in the party today would run him out of town if he were in the party because he wasn’t “conservative enough.” They would deride his sessions with then-Speaker of the House “Tip” O’Neill, a Democrat, after hours where the two men would commiserate – but not judge – about their jobs. Today’s Republican would have hated how, oh, just once or twice, Reagan would enter into a compromise with the Democrats, giving both parties the ability to say they got something done.

It REALLY went to Hell in the 1990s, however. The Republicans, granted control of Congress, worked with President Bill Clinton for a time before the ultra-right wing of the party decided that a blowjob in the Oval Office was a high crime and treasonous. Once the impeachment of Clinton was done – with his easy acquittal – the wedge was placed and, over the last 20 years, has been hammered in deeper and deeper.

Today’s Republican Party, while they like to say that they are “reflective of America (their word, not mine…we’ll get into that another time),” are about as far away from that as possible. It has become a political organization that looks out for business but doesn’t look out for their fellow man; it has become a political organization that is too beholden to religious interests, to the point of crippling the ability for their elected officials to do anything; it has become a party of “No” with zero credible ideas that would counter what is on the table and it has become a party that is way too old, male and white.

There’s still time for the Republican Party to resurrect itself, however. All they have to do is enter the 21st century and shed some weight.

Some of the platforms the GOP have are about as welcome in the 21st century as the proverbial turd in the punchbowl. Their views on several social issues, such as abortion, immigration, drug legalization, gay rights and social programs, are rooted in a 1950s mindset when these “things” weren’t discussed, pushing them under the pillow in the hope of smothering them until the light that the 1960s was illuminated the surroundings. As it is a new age – one that is more “forward thinking,” you might hope – the GOP could change some stances and make greater inroads.

Abortion should be a right; the government should have no place to tell someone what they can or cannot do with their body. Even the debate participants the other night couldn’t bring themselves to allow for an exception for rape, incest or endangerment of the mother’s life! Such a view as this is going to cause a sizeable segment of 52% of that electorate to not exactly side with you.

Immigration also falls into a category like this. When the minorities in one state (California) outnumber Caucasians, it might be a constituency that you would try to reach. Estimates are that currently the U. S. is 62.6% “white” (discounting Hispanics that count themselves as white), a total that will continue to move closer to the 50/50 mark as the country moves forward in this century. If you can’t have a solid policy for immigration – and this counts those that are here illegally as well – then you’re going to continue to have problems drawing these people to your viewpoint.

It is also time to get over the gay “rights” issue. Why shouldn’t people have the right to marry the person they love, even if it is the same sex? Why is it such an abhorrent occurrence that it causes Republicans to try to shut it down at every angle? How can you say that a same sex union sullies the “sanctity” of marriage while people get married two, three, four or more times heterosexually? Time to get over it, Republicans.

Now that we have most of the social issues out of the way, it’s time to cut the weight. For too long, the Republican Party has been carrying people that have dragged it into the morass that it currently finds itself. It is time to tell this “dead weight” to head off on its own.

First we’ll start with the “Tea Party” movement, who says it is all about lower taxes but seems to drag the GOP down when they start talking about social issues. Unfortunately, to run a government you have to have revenues and “trickle down” economics has been proven to be a disastrous way of running a government (let’s ask the people of Kansas what they think of this). Social issues are also a part of running a government and require funding.

The GOP should cast those that call themselves members of the “Tea Party” and say, “Hey, here you go. You’re on your own.” If the party is viable, then it will be able to garner support and, perhaps more importantly, financial viability and survive…hell, maybe even become a solid third party. If they aren’t able to do this, then they will drift off into the mists of history along with the Whigs, the Federalists, the Bull Moose, Know Nothings and Dixiecrats.

The GOP also needs to wean itself from the religious zealots of the party, which do nothing but hold it back. The United States has a definitive separation of Church and State; while you can be religious as a politician, it shouldn’t be the end-all, be-all with every decision that you make on a government level. In that case, you are a theocracy and no better than Iraq or other nations that rule by religion. The GOP needs to let those folks go also and maybe their party will be a viable one in future elections.

So let’s see what we have left in our Republican Party 2016: people that believe the federal government should not reach into every level of a citizen’s life; those that believe there should be financial responsibility in the operation of government; for the most part, the citizens should be left to do as they want unless they violate an extreme law of the land. This party already exists but is pooh-poohed by the two major parties…it’s the Libertarian Party.

If the GOP were willing to do these things, then they might be able to survive as a party. They sure as hell would be able to draw a more diverse following than they currently have.

I’d be pretty happy if there were a Democratic (and let’s be honest, that one could be hacked up itself), Republican, Libertarian, Tea and Church Parties and we’d probably have a pretty decent set of candidates for every election. We’d also have a keen insight to what mental motivation drives this person for office and what we could expect if they were elected. We would definitely have much better choices for President in 2016 than we have under the current situation.